Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Apple Will Shut Down Lala May 31

Tue, May 4, 2010 at 1:52 PM

Apple will shut down Lala on May 31 and is not taking any new users, according to an announcement on its web site. As reported by Bloomberg News, Apple bought Lala in December for $193.3 million. The site allowed users to listen to more than 8 million songs once for free, or to stream unlimited for 10 cents per song. Subscribers could also upload their music libraries and access the songs through a web browser on any device. It's believed that Apple wants to use Lala's cloud-based distribution technology for a future online version of iTunes, which Information Week says will be released in June. The site also reports that Lala will refund the money people spent on songs for unlimited streaming. As the Express reported last month, Berkeley-based company Mog is also trying to cash in on the cloud-music concept. Currently, iTunes only allows users to download music to a computer.